The policy people, including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and
economic advisor Gene Sperling, are arguing for a package of cuts
and reform. They argue that it urgently needs to be done
and that only a Democratic President can get it done.

The political advisors, including David Axelrod and David
Plouffe, say: "bad idea, bad for the re-election campaign, let
the GOP take the lead and cut their own throats."

So far, you will not be surprised to learn, the
political people are winning the argument. In the Obama
White House, Washington veterans say, the political people
always win the argument.

That sense -- that the only thing the Obama White House really
cares about is the re-election campaign -- is what drove most of
the Obama criticism that reached blizzard status this week.

The criticism falls into two general buckets. The first
bucket might be called "White House dithers as world
burns." There are countless examples of this from just the
last ten days. The second bucket might be called "White
House dithers while nation goes broke." This criticism has
been ongoing, and rises and falls depending on what else is
happening around the world.

For the moment, "White House dithers as world burns" is the focus
of the National Punditry, as MENA roils and Japan reels.
Obama is not doing right by the Libyan rebels. Obama is not
doing right by Israel. Obama is abandoning US allies in the
Gulf. Obama is not doing enough to support "rebels" in the
Gulf. Obama is not doing enough to help Japan. Obama
is not putting enough pressure on Iran. The list of
complaints goes on (and on).

The problem with this line of criticism is that it is largely
under-informed. President Obama has vast and
extraordinarily capable intelligence resources that constantly
feed him information about what is happening, everywhere, around
the globe. He is not at liberty to share that information
(or most of it) with us. But he makes the decisions he
makes based on that information.

So, it may well be that his "dithering" on Libya is purposeful;
he might have credible information that those who seek to
overthrow Qaddafi are even worse than Qaddafi himself. His
relative silence (and inaction) on Japan may also be purposeful;
the Japanese government may have asked him to stand down until
they had a better sense of where things stood.

In case after case, what the pundits think is happening is just
the half of it (or third of it). President Obama works off
of a much wider information base. That's a good thing
(better to have more information rather than less) and a
potentially bad thing ("top secret" information is often
misleading and/or wrong). But it does render moot much of
the insta-criticism of President Obama's decisions on
pressing foreign and/or national security policy
matters. The Pundits, generally speaking, don't really know
what they're talking about.

Criticism of President Obama's national security and foreign
policy strategy (or lack thereof), on the other hand,
has been generally fair and well-grounded. When he took
office, he inherited a world of problems; two unpopular but
nevertheless important wars, a functionally bankrupt global
financial system, a staggering national debt and you know the
rest. Since taking office, the president has seen some of
the strategic foundations of US foreign policy turned upside
down. In the case of the Middle East and North Africa,
those assumptions have come unraveled all over the
place.

It's hard to have a fully-formed grand strategy for a brand new
world on a moment's notice. It takes time to absorb the new
set of facts on the ground. The Obama Administration has
properly focused on "pragmatic transition" as its interim guiding
principle. Transitioning Egypt from the Mubarak regime to
whatever might follow should be a slowed-down process,
from the US point of view. The longer the transition, the
more input the US will have on what follows.

But there's plenty of room for disagreement about where US
interests truly lie and what it should be doing to advance those
interests. What's unusual about the Obama Administration is that
it hasn't designated an architect for this "new world
order." There's no Acheson. There's no
Marshall. There's no Kissinger, no Scowcroft/Baker tag team
even. There's only Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Advisor Tom
Donilon. Clinton and Gates have announced their
retirements, leaving only Donilon. Mr. Donilon is capable
in hundreds of ways, but he is not a foreign policy grand
strategist.

So the next spate of Obama criticism will probably focus on this
strategic thinking "gap." Pundits will clamor for a
strategic architect to their liking. Candidates will write
op-ed pieces in the major newspapers applying for the job.
It will be a lively debate. Hopefully, someone brilliant
will be found to fill the role.

It's a fairly urgent need. Having the president articulate
grand strategy is something of a trap. If he says it, then
he owns it. If someone else says it, it can always be
disowned. In a world as topsy-turvy as the one we live in
now, maximum presidential flexibility is probably best for all
concerned.

The second bucket of criticism ("Obama dithers while nation goes
broke") is much better-informed because everyone is working from
the same set of facts. There's no question that an ocean of
debt threatens to drown us all. There's no question that
that debt needs to be restructured and that future obligations
need to be reworked. This is not a Republican or Democratic
point of view. It's a fact.

We've now arrived at one of those points in the ongoing national
conversation where the focus will return to the question of what
to do about all this debt. The headlines will be about a
possible government shutdown and the eventual "budget deal" that
must be arrived at.

But the question that needs to be resolved is whether President
Obama agrees or disagrees with
the report of the National Commission on Fiscal
Responsibility and Reform that he appointed to look into this
very subject. Either he does what they propose he should do
(or something like it) or he doesn't. It's basically that
simple.

There are two political narratives that run inside the heads of
Mr. Obama's campaign handlers. Narrative One is Jimmy
Carter redux; high gas prices, bad news from the Middle East,
inflation, ennui. Narrative Two is Bill Clinton wins
re-election by moving to the "center," pushing the Republicans
off a "right-wing" cliff.

There's a third narrative, which one might call "Nixon goes to
China." This strategy would have President Obama embrace
the debt challenge and take the lead on restructuring the
government's future obligations. If he doesn't choose "Nixon goes
to China," he'll deserve all the criticism he gets.